Reminiscence therapy using photographs and a PC to present the same image was compared using images of an old-style Japanese fireplace and a washboard. Subjects undertook reminiscence therapy for a 5-minute session and we used snap reading method for analysis. Each activity was counted at 5-second intervals for 3 minutes of a 5-minute session. Subjects gazed at and made positive replies about both images, and no significant difference was seen between the two methods. We concluded that PC-based reminiscence therapy can be used effectively in conjunction with standard reminiscence therapy.

A Hospital Information Systems (HIS) have turned a hospital into a gigantic computer with huge computational power, huge storage and wired/wireless local area network. On the other hand, a modern medical device, such as echograph, is a computer system with several functional units connected by an internal network named a bus. Therefore, we can embed such a medical device into the HIS by simply replacing the bus with the local area network. This paper designed and developed two embedded systems, a ubiquitous echograph system and a networked digital camera. Evaluations of the developed systems clearly show that the proposed approach, embedding existing clinical systems into HIS, drastically changes productivity in the clinical field. Once a clinical system becomes a pluggable unit for a gigantic computer system, HIS, the combination of multiple embedded systems with application software designed under deep consideration about clinical processes may lead to the emergence of disruptive innovation in the clinical field.

In 2001, a system was created to improve patient service, improve the quality of medical care, and achieve efficient medical care. A Data Center was established to accumulate and manage clinical information in the regions and share clinical information safely and appropriately. The system has already been in operation for 3 years. Even though a patient may have been examined at multiple hospitals, his medical record information will be integrated at the Center. This ensures medical care continuity and enables the patient to view his own medical records at home. Its usefulness in obtaining informed consent has been demonstrated as well. XML instances established in the MML standards (MML (Medical Markup Language): http.//www.medxml.net/E_mml30/mmlv3_E_index.htm Accessed July 2004; Jpn. J. Med. Informatics (JJMI) 17(3):203-207, 1997; J. Med. Syst. 24(3):195-211, 2000; J. Med. Syst. 27(4):357-366, 2003; J. Med. Syst. 28(6):523-533, 2004) are used for Electronic Medical Record System data exchange between the Data Center and each medical institution. The openness provided by XML makes it possible to connect diverse electronic medical records to the Center. As of the year 2004, over 10 types of electronic medical records have an MML interface, enabling connection to the Center.

-This paper proposes a tele-instruction system for ultrasound probe operation, based on shared Augmented Reality (AR) technology. Telemedicine, a strategy to diminish geographic gaps in the quality of medical service, is fashionable. However, existing medical-data transmission systems cannot convey the skills of physicians, so they cannot eliminate the problem of geographic gaps.This research developed a telemedicine system that transports physicians' skills over a shared AR space. The shared AR technology provides an environment where users can exchange spatial information, and facilitates smooth communication. This research concentrates on interfaces for physicians and technicians at the patient site. The proposed system provides intuitive and unrestricted interfaces for the physician and technician, using a data projector and an LCD tablet. At the patient site, instructions for the technician are projected directly onto the patient's body, using a data projector. The physician site allows the physician to send instructions on probe operation using an LCD tablet. This information is displayed as a "web-mark", which provides spatial information for ultrasound probe operation. Furthermore, the system sends environmental information about the patient to the physician, such as the technician's behavior and patient's posture, via an immersive display. The proposed system was tested with a physician using real telediagnosis. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method in providing smooth communication in telemedicine.. . . . Keywords -telemedicine, tele-instruction, shared AR space, ultrasound probe operations, web-mark I. INTRODUCTIONTelemedicine is a new medical service model that enables a patient to receive medical services without visiting a hospital by connecting medical sites and patients. Existing telemedicine systems use conventional multi-media communications that can handle medical data, such as vital signs, X-ray and CT images, and so on [1-2]. Such systems require physicians or medical technicians with sufficient skill to provide appropriate medical service to the patient. However, skilled persons are not always available, and an unskilled person may require the help of a specialist to obtain appropriate medical data. In such cases, the specialist must transmit instructions on how to handle medical devices with the utmost care and patience, as direct communication using manual manipulation is not available with any existing telemedicine system. This paper proposes an innovative telemedicine system that enables direct instruction, in which the participants share the same time and space via a network.. This research is partly funded by THE INAMORI FOUNDATION and JSPS-RFTF 99I00905. II. METHODSTelemedicine systems that use popular, universal medical devices are the most effective. Therefore, the authors are developing a telemedicine system that uses an ultrasound diagnostic device that is widely available, even in small clinics [3-4]. As mentioned above, good communication is...

A new telemedicine system that enables real-time telemedicine using a medical ultrasound image sequence on a digital network of up to 128 kbps is proposed. This system compresses an image sequence by our original joint photographic expert group (JPEG) compression library that adapts for real-time and point-to-point communication. Moreover, this system deals with three transmission modes to provide smooth telemedicine and two kinds of transmission images. The three transmission modes available include real-time teleconferencing between the remote expert at a diagnosis site and the doctor and a patient at a patient site, real-time remote instruction from the remote expert to obtain an appropriate medical ultrasound image sequence for the diagnosis and real-time transmission of the medical ultrasound image sequence for the remote expert to make the diagnosis. One transmission image contains an entire medical ultrasound image with a low frame rate, therefore the remote expert can diagnose a disease using this medical ultrasound image sequence that contains tissue and other information. The other image is of the region of interest (ROI) of a medical ultrasound image sequence for diagnosis. The ROI is specified by the remote expert at the diagnosis site to reduce the size of the medical ultrasound image. As a result, the proposed system transmits the ROI with a high frame rate. Through international telemedicine experiments using medical ultrasound image sequence consulting experts, we can state with sufficient certainty that the proposed system can provide the required performance to enable medical experts to perform real-time telemedicine on a digital network or over the Internet.